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Berlin Man Threatens To Burn Down Parents’ Home

BERLIN – A Berlin man was arrested on threat of arson and other charges this week after allegedly threatening to burn down his parents’ home with them in it just weeks after his release from jail for a pair of assault convictions related to a stabbing incident.

Around 6 p.m. on Sunday, Maryland State Police troopers from the Salisbury barrack met with a couple in Salisbury who reported their son had threatened to kill them and burn their house down. According to the complainants, their son, Nathaniel Irving Schneider, 21, of Berlin, had recently been kicked out of the family home over domestic-related issues.

According to police reports, for a period of about one week, Schneider allegedly made numerous threats to his mother that he was going to burn their house down with his parents in it and then kill himself. Schneider was reportedly living with another family member in Worcester County when he made the threats.

Maryland State Police troopers from the Berlin barrack, along with Natural Resources Police (NRP), located Schneider, who was hiding in the Worcester home. Schneider was taken into custody and transported back to Wicomico where the treats occurred and was charged with threat of arson and obscene telephone misuse. He is being held in Wicomico County on a $50,000 bond.

Schneider was recently released from jail after serving about two months of a six-month sentence for a pair of second-degree assault convictions from a stabbing incident in West Ocean City on New Year’s Eve. Shortly before 9 p.m. on Dec. 31, 2009, police responded to the Royal Farms store on Route 50 in West Ocean City for a reported stabbing.

The investigation revealed the reported attack had taken place at a nearby residence on Old Bridge Rd. MSP troopers identified one victim had been stabbed in the throat and upper left arm, while a juvenile had been hit over the head with a beer bottle.

The victims both identified Schneider as the attacker in the incident and he was arrested and charged with two counts each of first- and second-degree assault. In May, Schneider entered an Alford Plea to two counts of second-degree assault and was sentenced to three years in jail with all but six months suspended.

Schneider was then given credit for the 125 days he spent in jail awaiting trial, making his release date sometime in July, just weeks before his alleged threat to burn down his parents’ house in Salisbury.